Why client/agency harmony is so important for SEO performance

Without trying to claim (but we reckon that we would go close) the most obvious statement of the year award, the bond between a client and agency needs to work. But despite its obvious undertones, many agencies fail to recognise a simple, but often overlooked fact: you, the client, have a better understanding of your own business and sector!

Instead, we would like to think of ourselves as talented individuals, who are perpetually learning, testing and implementing strategies and tactics that best compliment an individual client.

And that is basically who you are: a highly talented person who has a strong grasp of your own business and sector by continually learning new methods, helping maintain or develop that all-important business concept, by gaining a competitive advantage.

For us agency folk, that knowledge and understanding is like a gold mine, ready to be unleashed and harvested for significant returns on an integral key performance indicator (KPI) such as, increasing your revenue, for example.

But why this is relevant to me?

If you are unaware of the changes which have impacted SEO over the last three years, in particular, then this will help give some perspective. To cut a long story short, this illustration can help summarise it:

It’s that drastic (or any other superlative you want to add)!

There was a time when spammy article directories, which you would have been ashamed to put your name to, reigned supreme. A time when many people in the SEO world attempted to add legal firms to massage directories for the purpose of gaining prominence in the search engines. The sad thing is that this worked. But a crucial component was missing while conducting these unethical tactics: the client and agency didn’t require such a close practical relationship.

But, now what?

If you haven’t heard of a buzzword called ‘content marketing’, then you need to put down your 1999 marketing textbook because these two words are everywhere. But despite this being recognised as an important way to not only gain links and brand awareness, but by aligning it with who your customers are; where they interact and also, the type of message and tone they engage with; it is a powerful approach to develop conversations. These can then lead to conversions by gradually nurturing your customers through the buying process.

And that is essentially where it begins. Without your expertise and insight on what, where and when your customers consume content, we can never truly meet the potential we know campaigns can reach.

Sure, we can assume who they are and where they are engaging, but we all know this will be a futile exercise.

Is it Just Content Marketing Nowadays?

Being a one trick pony is never a good thing in any context, so why allow it to exist here? Each sector and even each business within a sector has, in some cases, alarming differences. But this is what makes your brand have its own personal identity. In other words, it’s what makes your brand successful, by enabling it to attract loyal followers from hopefully far, far away.

So, with these differences in mind, let’s help make this more digestible by bullet-pointing how working together can benefit your ambitions more effectively and efficiently, from a non-content-marketing perspective (in other words, a good old fashioned, link acquisition strategy):

Capitalise on previous opportunities (both your company and competitors)

Understanding your resourcefulness and ‘linking potential’

Developing ways to enhance this by understanding the types of sites that can link.

Variety is central to this. But to properly succeed, a mutual commitment is required from both parties. And this includes the potential to gain extra resource help from yourselves, if you have this available, of course.

This post only bushes the surface of the wider client and agency relationship, but we hope this offers some context to how both parties can work in tandem, especially when we appreciate the challenges the constantly changing algorithm presents to everyone connected to the SEO world.